Emmanuela Oliveira 
An athlete with a real awareness of all the qualities he needs to develop to stand out among the rest, Gabriel Sousa is a name with potential to attract the attention of sports enthusiasts. Mentioning more recent commitments, at the end of last year the black-belt was part of the annihilating Modolfo team, great champion of the AIGA Championship. In the new season, Gabriel already appeared with a trophy in hand, winning Yuta Shimada in a Gi duel at ADXC 2, an event based in Abu Dhabi.
In an exclusive interview with VF Comunica, Gabriel Sousa addressed important points for his technical improvement as an athlete. Two years after the final against Diogo Reis at ADCC, with the title won by the Melqui Galvão athlete, Gabriel knew how to recognize his opponent’s differences, as well as identify his characteristics that needed an upgrade.
“Currently, I see Gabriel who fought in the ADCC, I see the position that I lost in the ADCC that, if it were today, would be totally different. Including my wrestling, I invested a lot in that part. Because in ADCC, in my point of view, you have to be a very sharp wrestler and know heel hook defenses. Diogo Reis, the champion, took everyone down, dominated, took the back and was up to date with his heel hook defense.”, he analyzes.
In this Gabriel’s comment, he also says that the skills of a guard, capable of applying heel hooks, can be seen as a strong point in grappling disputes. With this proposal in mind, to play more guard, Gabriel guided his strategy at AIGA.
“It was an opportunity for me to test my guard, fighting against very tough athletes. So I was pulling athletes to guard just to help me train that and test the guard as well. So, I invested a lot of time studying both guarding and wrestling.”, he comments.
Gabriel Sousa had to dedicate himself to training full-time
To reach his higher potential as an athlete, Gabriel had to give up a specific activity: academy manager. As a high-performance fighter, Gabriel had the obligation to dedicate himself completely to training in order to remain at the high level of champions.
“Before I had to do everything, basically everything in my academy. This took a lot of effort and I wasn’t able to give 100% of myself in training. Talking to people close to me, one of the things I had to do was move away from the gym and move to New York to train full-time. Today, I just train, practically all day. I’m trying to stay as active as possible, I believe I’ll stay like this until June, half of June. After that, it’s time to rest the body to focus on the ADCC camp.”, he reveals, with the words of an athlete much more aware of what he needs to do to win the title of ADCC champion.
See below the full interview with Gabriel Sousa on the VFComunica channel, on YouTube!
